Media Riptide; Reaching In Mobile

You may want to set aside next weekend for this. Nieman Journalism Lab has released a tome called “Riptide,” chronicling media’s transformation brought on by digital in the past 30+ years. Among the many media honchos, Business Insider’s Henry Blodget is positioned as a disruptor and he’s asked about whether programmatic media is an opportunity or not by interviewer and former NY Times exec Martin Nisenholtz. He replies, “What programmatic has allowed us to do is now raise the value of [commodity banner ads] a lot, so it’s helping us. Industrywide, what you’re going to see is the programmatics or the automated buying and more efficient buying is going to drive down pricing for advertising. That is OK for us, because we have built the model to be able to do fine on ad rates that are considerably below the current average across the industry.” Read Blodget’s interview. And read Riptide next weekend.

Reaching In Mobile

ComScore released its July 2013 stats for reach among smartphone sites and apps in the U.S. on Friday with Google and Facebook topping the list with about 90% reach. See it. Of note, The Weather Company has more reach than Twitter, according to comScore.

Data Don’t Lie

Digiday’s Jack Marshall details a man vs. machine story around digital ad sales. He writes about Dutch morning newspaper De Telegraaf, which “makes its salespeople compete directly with programmatic channels, and it factors things like salaries and other overheads into its ad decisions. This is yield management taken to the extreme. If the paper can make more money selling ads through exchanges or other programmatic deals for a $4 CPM than it does from direct deals for $8, it’ll do that instead. As the philosopher Rasheed Wallace might put it: Data don’t lie.” Read it.

Consumer Data

On FT.com, Emily Steel looks at new efforts (AboutTheData.com) by Acxiom to show users what data Acxiom and its clients have on them. Steel says the plan is backfiring according to several consumer privacy advocates, including Center for Digital Democracy’s Jeff Chester and the ACLU’s Christopher Sogohian. She summarizes, “Critics said that the data Acxiom discloses through the site is only a small sample of the information the company tracks and sells and does not include more sensitive categories, such as propensity for gambling or likelihood of smoking.” Read more (subscription).

Yahoo Upfront

Yahoo is following AOL’s lead and pitching advertisers on a programmatic upfront, albeit much more quietly. According to Ad Age’s Tim Peterson, advertisers want to do business with Yahoo, but they are concerned about pricing and Yahoo’s outdated ad technology. "One of the challenges is how they funnel Yahoo owned-and-operated [inventory] into RMX," an agency exec said. "I don't think it's changed in five years. As much as they talk about upgrading, from what we're seeing the infrastructure is outdated." Read more.

Analytics Funding

Analytics startup AdYapper raised $1.2 million in seed funding led by KGC Capital, TechCrunch is reporting. The company seeks to add more depth to analytics through proprietary metrics such as viewable click-through rate, rather than regular click-through rate, and brand exposure duration. "[Clients need] the data delivered real-time via API for RTB, programmatic buying, and attribution modeling, as well as clear action items presented in a beautiful UI, in one format, not just numbers on a page,” said CEO and founder Elliot Hirsch. Read more.

Flight Data

Delta Airlines is taking a step in the more personalized flight direction by giving flight attendants smartphones to handle food and drink sales, as well as seat upgrades. As Businessweek points out, there is a part of this new process that will lead to flight attendants using “customer-specific information to enable more personalized service.” The one caveat will be avoiding the creepiness factor. Read more.

The Big “Pivot”

ChoiceStream’s recommendation software worked well, but the market wasn’t big enough, says ChoiceStream. So the company “pivoted” a bit to bring its recommendation algorithms to programmatic advertising -- that’s according to the Boston Business Journal, which talked to ChoiceStream CEO Eric Bosco about the transition the company has made over the last 13 years. Read more. The company has raised more than $78 million in its lifetime.

Mobile Imps, Hits

Mobile-ad firm Millennial Media released its Mobile Mix report for Q2 2013, with findings similar to Q1. Some of the notable points are that the report now includes tablets and other connected devices as well as smartphones and feature phones. Apple remains the top manufacturer for mobile impressions, with Samsung coming in second. Amazon shows up on the list of top manufacturers, despite not being a true hardware company, due to its Amazon Kindle. Android remains the largest operating system for smartphones. Read the report here (pay with some PII). And, Apple continues to dominate the tablet market.

Compensating The Agent

On The Makegood, Underscore Marketing’s Tom Hespos argues that changes in agency compensation models are inevitable. He counsels marketers, “Look for strategic counsel to become a hot commodity in the coming years, and be sure that when compensation models are discussed with potential clients, your agency comes down on the right side for what you hope to accomplish over the course of the relationship.” Read more.

For “Native” Marketers

According to TechCrunch, Outbrain and Taboola have a new competitor called Ideal Media. The company evidently provides content recommendation units along with custom “native” integrations and other content-marketing capabilities. Read more.

Buying Big Data

Swiss advertising platform Adello Group has acquired big data startup HStreaming, according to GigaOM. Although HStreaming was doing well, it was hard to scale. “The technology has no practical limitations, but we have to market the company. … Watch what happens in the next six months. … I sold 800 customers at Vertica before I sold the company [to HP], and every one of them is going to want HStreaming,” said Chris Lynch of Atlas Venture, an HStreaming investor. Read more.